ASARCO Update

I had a meeting this morning with the trustee who has been appointed to implement the remediation of the ASARCO site. His name is Roberto E. Puga, R.G from Project Navigator, LTD in Brea, California. His charge is to use the $52 million from the bankruptcy settlement with ASARCO to clean up the now abandoned ASARCO site and then to sell the site for redevelopment.

Right now, Mr. Puga is in the process of meeting with various stakeholders and beginning the detailed evaluation of the site and the implementation plan. He wants to include the public in some of the decisionmaking about the ultimate use of the site, and he wants to make sure that the public is kept apprised of all progress on the remediation. Towards that end, he is developing a website that will go live at the end of the month. The website will provide information on progress, tools for providing input and a portal for contractors to find out about bids.

Once he has a solid lay of the land, we will host a community meeting sometime in late March or early April to provide information about the remediation plan, to answer questions about the plan and to solicit input on uses for the site that the community would like to see or uses the community might be opposed to. One of the questions he asked in the meeting was whether we wanted to see the ASARCO stacks demolished or to remain as part of the redevelopment of the site. Much of this will be determined by the buyer of the site, but Mr. Puga wants to work to the extent possible to make sure that the ultimate use is a good fit for the community. The City, including our Economic Development team, will work with him closely to find a good fit.

The other thing that he is mindful about is making sure that most of the work stays here in El Paso. Towards that end, he said he has two incentives to encourage El Paso contractors to bid on work. One, he is going to make sure that there is additional preference given to local bidders. For very small contractors who have not worked with hazardous materials, he will help to train their workers as an incentive to encourage them to compete for work.

I will keep you posted as I hear more but wanted to give you a quick update on what I know.